Thread by @zra_research

As some know, I teach a publishing course for grad students focused on articles. Here is some common feedback that I give on student drafts #SocTwitter: (1) The "lit review" needs an argument. The section should not be about "here's how widely read I am in topic X," but about 1/

"here's my argument about the prior literature that THIS paper addresses." This doesn't have to be a gap, but can be. (2) The front of the paper doesn't match the back end. That is, the paper sets up expectations for answers to questions that the data cannot answer. This often 2/

has to do with writing order or reusing proposals that describe the work for intro material. BUT can also be because the paper is a piece of a larger project and the front end talks too much about the larger context in ways that are not needed for the specific paper (common in 3/

papers coming out of the diss). (3) Missing a discussion of contributions. Not only should the paper identify the findings/answers to the RQs, but it should also explain how the answers contribute to the literature. This work is particularly imp in the intro and conclusion. 4/

(4) The organization is hard to follow. The traditional sections of a paper don't always provide an organization that helps readers retain info they need to understand the findings. E.g., hypotheses in the lit review are often forgotten by the time the paper is testing them 5/

OR descriptions of the case site might come too soon for the reader to remember the key elements when reading the findings. This means you either need reminders OR you need to reorganize the paper. (Keep in mind that some journals have a required section order.) 6/

(5) Data presentation is lacking interpretation. You can't trust the reader to see what you see, so you need to tell them what you see. Walk them through EVERY table/figure. Interpret EVERY quotation. Connect that back to the questions the paper is aiming to answer. 7/

There are multiple ways to interpret the same data source depending on your perspective and question, so tell the reader how you are interpreting things so they can see your perspective.

What common feedback do you find yourself to grad students and in reviews?
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